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Crimson Skies Review November 6, 2000 Crimson Skies is Microsoft's latest offering in the gaming arena. It is being advertised as an action game and not a flight sim, a surprise as all of the game material, including the box, is heavy with pictures of airborne craft. Focusing on a more "arcadey" feel than a traditional, realistic simulation, Microsoft has created a game it hopes will revive the somewhat dull flight game genre into something new and more intense. Have they achieved their goal or merely tried to fix a genre that wasn't broken? Let's take a look. Crimson Skies isn't your "ordinary" flight sim. Many are daunted from buying Crimson Skies purely because there's a picture of a plane on the box, and the word "Skies" in the title. Crimson skies isn't a flight sim at all, but an all-out action game. This becomes evident as soon as your plane does a 360-degree barrel roll while firing its rockets at an enemy fighter, which is in the process of doing a somersault, and hitting it dead-on. Upon starting up the game, you're presented with the obligatory main menu. From here you can select Campaign, Mulitplayer, Instant Action, Preferences, Credits, and of course, Quit. The Campaign puts you in the shoes of one Nathan Zachary, the leader of a group of aerial pirates known as the Fortune Hunters. Though Nathan and his pirates are in it for their own personal gain, deep down Nathan is your traditional "good guy", with a core of morals and decency. The campaign missions are extremely action-packed and imaginative, from stealing the Spruce Goose to rescuing a German scientist. All the makings of a top-notch Hollywood movie are to be found in Crimson Skies' campaign, which makes it extremely involving and intense. There is a huge game bug resulting from corrupt saved game data files, which I'll touch upon for a moment. After playing 7 Campaign missions, I thought it'd be fun to try out the Multi-player element on the MSN Gaming Zone. After being shamelessly shot down time after time by obvious World War II veterans, I decided I'd be better off playing by myself. I went to load my game, and got an error. It seems I'm not the only one having this problem, as a myriad of other gamers are experiencing the exact same bug. The only solution to this is to either not play Multi-player or Instant Action (it happens there as well) at all, or to totally finish the Campaign before venturing online. This is a severe problem and should've been discovered before Microsoft ever shipped the game. Hopefully they'll take a hint and get a patch out as soon as possible. Being an action game, the planes of Crimson Skies don't function at all as they should. No need to worry about banking too fast or pulling up abruptly after barrel-rolling; it's all possible in Crimson Skies. It definitely feels like an action game the most when you're flying your plane, especially in the 3rd-person view. Some missions require you to fly through tight places such as under a bridge, barely over a moving train, and through a barn. You'll want a gamepad or joystick for this game, and you'll want to use your keyboard as well for some of the controls. No flight game, action or sim, would be complete without the obligatory dials and meters. In the first-person view, there are seven seperate meters you'll need to monitor. There's a compass, which is self-explanatory, an altimeter which measures your altitude, a speedometer which tells you how fast you're going, and an artificial horizon, which lets you know if you're ascending, descending, banking, and so forth. The next three are purely for combat; the gunnery display tells you which gun is armed and how much ammunition is remaining, the rocket display which tracks the status of the rockets currently loaded as well as how many remain, and the damage indicator, which lets you know what condition your plane is in, ranging from green to red. These meters are extremely helpful, and must be used to succeed in Crimson Skies. Constant monitoring isn't necessary, just periodic checks. Crimson Skies allows you to construct your own plane as well. You start with naming the plane you're about to design. You'll be presented with the plane's construction blueprints, detailing everything about your plane. There are bars displaying the current stats for your plane, such as weight capacity, offensive capability, and armor. As you change the design, the bars will change to reflect what you've added or taken away. You can customize six areas of your plane: the airframe, where a heavier frame will give your plane increased longevity, and a lighter frame will make your plane more agile, the engine, armour, guns, hardpoints (structrually reinforced areas on your wings for rockets to attach to), and of course, paint job. You'll have to have enough cash for all of this, which you'll earn in the campaign. Constructing a custom plane is great fun, and I always find it more enjoyable to fly my very own "Yo Momma" fighter plane as opposed to a pre-constructed one.
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